


Queen You Shall Be

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei's lord father keeps his promise to her, so why does it feel like a hollow victory?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen You Shall Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ars_belli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/gifts).



If Father hadn’t resigned his position as Hand of the King, if he hadn’t come home to the Rock to sulk like a child and dragged her here with him… If they’d attended Lord Whent’s great tourney like everyone else…

Cersei was certain that she would have been the one to catch Rhaegar’s eye. It would have been her he’d have abandoned his wife for; her he carried off to some secret love nest. They said Lyanna Stark was a fair maiden, but surely that was only in comparison to frail, dark Elia. A wolf was nothing to a lion. If Cersei had been at Harrenhal, it would have been her golden beauty that captured Prince Rhaegar’s heart. 

Father was cold and distant, and on the rare occasion that they dined together, he fixed his gold-flecked green eyes on her as coldly as he would stare down any foolish courtier. Cersei felt the unspoken rebuke. All those years she’d spent by his side, living in the Red Keep - those were but squandered chances to captivate Rhaegar. Her disappointment at being ignored by the crown prince was real enough, and bitter enough, but it also stung to know that Lord Tywin considered her a failure. 

Her mother, the Lady Joanna, had captured King Aerys’ attention without even trying. When she’d first heard of the king’s attention to her late mother, Cersei had wondered why Joanna had not seized the opportunity to make herself Aerys’ queen. She had never wondered aloud, though, out of loyalty to her lord father. Tywin Lannister was not a king, but he was much handsomer and cleverer than Aerys Targaryen. 

It was fortunate that Rhaegar was the most handsome man in the realm, and the sweetest singer as well. Naively, Cersei had thought she was lucky. She would not have to choose between being Queen and being wife of the greatest man in the Seven Kingdoms, for the heir to the Iron Throne was the greatest man of the age. She had wept when Rhaegar wed Elia of Dorne, but then she’d dried her tears and consoled herself that Elia was notoriously poor of health. 

And yet Elia had survived the birth of not one, but two babes. She should have died, yet she lived still. Cersei did not understand how Elia had twice survived the very thing that had killed Joanna Lannister. Lady Joanna had been strong. It was Tyrion’s fault…

And Father’s fault. Tyrion was the monster, but it was Father the gods had sent him to punish…

“I will send for you when it is over,” Lord Tywin told her. He and his host rode east, whether to join the rebellion or to suppress it, Cersei did not know. 

She entertained herself with daydreams. She imagined her lord father putting down the rebellion and regaining the king’s favor. King Aerys would send Elia and her children and the northern slut Lyanna to the Faith and he would reward Lord Tywin by wedding Rhaegar to Cersei. Rhaegar would be sad at first, but she would quickly win him over and he’d fall madly in love with her.

Yet Cersei was not surprised when the news came that Lord Tywin had sacked King’s Landing soon after Robert Baratheon’s victory on the Trident. Tywin Lannister did not forgive, and Aerys Targaryen had robbed him of his heir. Sometimes Cersei would lie awake and wonder what would happen if her father ever found out that it was her who’d planted the idea of Jaime taking the white. 

She thought of it on her wedding night, after Robert was snoring drunkenly, after she’d dried her angry tears. Lord Tywin had gotten what he wanted; his daughter was Queen. But she had not gotten what she wanted - Robert was no Rhaegar. She wondered just how much those strange eyes of Tywin’s saw, if he knew enough to punish her without knowing fully why. One day she’d have the power to confront him, but not quite yet.


End file.
